1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for autonomously controlling an information processing system made up of a plurality of information processing apparatuses connected via a network.
2) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in an information technology (IT) infrastructure system, resources such as servers, storages, and networks are separately managed. When a failure or an abrupt load change is detected, specifying a failed portion, analyzing a bottleneck, redesigning and verifying the system, and handling are manually carried out based on failure information or load information obtained from each device of the servers, storages, and the networks.
However, as the system becomes larger and the system configuration becomes more complex, the conventional manual handling requires a large amount of time and a large number of process steps when a failure or an abrupt load change occurs, which in turn invites an increase in total cost ownership (TCO) due to the occurrence of trouble caused by an operation mistake or the like.
To cope with the problems, an autonomous control system in which the system is automatically reconfigured at the time of recovering from a failure occurring in the system or at the time of the occurrence of an abrupt load change (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-265726 and “Server Technology”, [searched on Apr. 14, 2004], the Internet URL:http://www.ibm.com/ibm/licensing/patents/server.shtml).
In the autonomous control system, management of resources such as servers, storages, and networks are centralized. By automatically detecting and analyzing a failure or an abrupt load change, reconfiguring and verifying the system, and handling, it is sought to achieve a system that never stops, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without manual intervention.
However, in the conventional autonomous control system, there is a problem in which system recovery or reallocation cannot be flexibly performed based on control requirements (policies) of the system. For example, different schemes of system recovery and reallocation are required for different cases where recovery from a failure or handling of a load change is performed as quickly as possible and where the resources are used as effectively as possible. In the conventional autonomous control system, there is a problem in which a recovery or reallocation scheme cannot be changed.